Rocker arm assemblies are well known in internal combustion engines to combat opening and closing of valves to permit gases to enter or exit a combustion engine. The rocker arm serves to pivot to couple and transfer the reciprocal movement of a pushrod to the corresponding reciprocal movement of a valve stem.
Known rocker arm assemblies which use a ball-in-socket type of juncture suffer the disadvantage of excessive frictional forces and wear between metal surfaces in the socket-forming member metal surfaces of the ball-forming member.
To reduce the friction associated with such ball-in-socket type of rocker arm assemblies, more expensive rocker arm assemblies have been provided with the rocker arm journalled for rotation about an axis. Such fixedly journalled rocker arm assemblies as are used in high performance engines suffer the disadvantage that they do not allow for slight pivoting or yawing of the rocker arm assembly about an axis perpendicular to the journal axis as is advantageous to compensate for slight angulation of a valve stem when it contacts the rocker arm.